Off the Cliff

Wind blew in dry air, which was much appreciated, and later cooler air, which is heavenly. May try sleeping with just a window fan tonight because this open windows policy won't last long. 

Popped a crown, which is what comes of eating French bread that's both chewy and has a crust. Dentist can see me Monday instead of Thursday, which is as well because Thursday is set, once again, to be steamy and stormy. Really must arrange to not have my 6 month checkups in July because July is now monsoon season in TO. Mind, the rain forecast for today kindly stayed away from my area, which was nice except I'd half-hoped it would wash the seedling scum from the bins.

So went to the library to return the McKay book and also to photocopy my statement of account, from my tax return, which for some reason I didn't do in April. Needed for the property tax deferral form, as also for next year's income tax. Then had sushi at Sushi on Bloor, where kind diners always open doors for me coming in and staff hold them open going out, because the staff, at least, know I pay in cash and tip 40%. Which I do because single diners in popular restaurants need to sweeten the servers.

Also in my attempts at shrinking myself, have lost  two pounds plus or minus since Monday. Was wondering when the too too solid flesh would melt because I've been melting for weeks with no effect. So it begins, I hope.

We're having what us effete Canucks define as a heat wave, meaning anything over 30C/86F so not much is happening here. Got out to tony Korean restaurant on Friday for disappointing cold noodles (I want Japanese tenzaru soba, and this was...not it. More veg than zaru soba has, but not the same taste.) Saturday was physio because my physiotherapist took Monday to Wednesday off, which always messes with my time sense because Wednesday is physio day in my mind. She says my legs are much looser than they've been in a while, for which I may thank that massage on Thursday. And got a load of socks and underwear washed at the laundromat and hung from my chandeliers, so I am well supplied for the next few weeks.

AGO is open tomorrow, a special occasion to celebrate the Group of Seven. But tomorrow is also supposed to rain, so doubt that I'll make it.

One should note when the weather is decent because it's about to become the reverse. Muggy and wet tomorrow, probably same for the rest of the week, then heat dome arrives. But today, when I finally made it out, was pleasant and breezy and the sky was blue, which it hasn't been lately, what with fires and pollution.

In winter I sit on the couch because there's nowhere to go and I tell myself I'll be more active in summer. Well, it's summer now and I sit on the couch because my back hurts, and I do nothing because my elbows hurt, and my nose is stuffed up from pollen. Thus there is no health within us.

 I've been feeling bloated and puffy these last weeks, which my ankles tell me is what I am, and anyway, mug and heat and all = summer life as normal. But I woke this morning oddly limber and decided I'd better see what the damage is, so went downstairs and weighed myself. To find I'm ten pounds/ 4.5 kilos less than I'd thought and fifteen pounds less than I'd feared. What I was last February, basically. This is what not drinking will do to you. So I need only lose 20 pounds/ 9 kilos to get to my pre-op weight, not 30.

The problem basically is that my body image hasn't really changed since my mid-30s while my body certainly has. So seeing my reflection in store fronts is a shock.  Who's that short thick woman? Why, it's me.

It stopped raining mid-afternoon so I set out for the laundromat and ran into my garbage bin painters coming down the street with their newly purchased 3. So I was able to pay them then, and stop worrying about them coming some morning to roust me out of bed during one of my indulgent lie-ins. Not that I lay in this morning. My exhausted lungs took me to bed at 11 last night, meaning I was wide awake at 8:30.

Today was still not easy on the lungs but miles better than yesterday. Sinuses still fill, throat is still scratchy, eyes still itch. But laundry has been achieved, I have clean towels and hand towels and sleep pants, so count myself content.

Got my Covid booster today so arm which has been aching with the damp is now aching with the shot. OTOH something like three people today remarked on how nice it was to see the sun finally. Even if it didn't rain Saturday it was grey, and Sunday of course did rain. Spent the weekend drinking and eating sugar, so now we begin the dry out, water, and veggies routine. Have cancelled Wednesday's physio from an abundance of caution re: side-effects, and am moving a bit more, either from exercises or housekeeping. That I've been doing little of the latter is indicated by having to empty the vacuum's canister twice just from vacuuming the front hall and living room.

Since I was up at Dupont I got a xerox of my water/ property tax rebate form in case I screwed it up when filling it out. Asked for two copies, forgot to say it didn't need to be double-sided, and was a bit stunned when he charged me five dollars for same. I mean it got me some five dollar bills for tips if I want to order take-out this week, but next time I'll do it at the library.

Otherwise I struggle to get out of bed these mornings because even with the heating coming on, it's still cold. So much easier just to go back to sleep and have comforting forgettable dreams.

I do not do well in hot weather and that's what we got today. And just as the first cold spell in late fall feels extra cold when, a few months later,  a high of 0C/ 32F registers as Yippee no gloves! weather, so the first 25C/ 77F is 'can I turn on the AC?' Not that I did. Summer duvet and sleep shirt instead of feather and hoodie. Window fan in the window last night and standing fans during the day. Though when I pulled the bedroom fan out and plugged it in, I then looked at it for five minutes trying to figure how the thing turned on. No buttons, no levers, no nothing. Seems you turn the collar around the upright part and that's how it's done. 

This is not set to last past Sunday, which is good. I may start feeling like myself again. But right now I'm grumpy because my upright walker isn't the miracle I'd hoped for. I did register that the removable bag it comes with isn't that large, but not that it's actually useless for carrying groceries. The walker itself is much wider than I'm used to and also ungainly, with a tendency to tip to one side: not nearly as stable as my other one. It folds up for storage, but that means it folds up when I don't want it to, and is still to my eye too big to fit into a car. There must be a way to lock it but I can't figure out what. So sometime next week I'll take it back up to Starkman's and see if someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong. And if there's a basket I can get for it. 

Or I might start doing all my exercises with a view to ditching the walkers completely.

My ankles have ballooned from warmth, though it's not yet that warm: maybe in anticipation of tomorrow's 20C; or from indulgence in Cake, though that's a bit fast; or just Because. Should elevate them here on the sofa but not until I finish this.

Finished High Vaultage, well enough in its steampunk fashion but would be better if the prequel-- a podcast I *think*-- was also in print form. And The Baron of Magister Valley, also well enough except I skimmed over Paarfi being Paarfi being tiresomely prolix. This has left me with a desire to reread The Viscount of Adrilankha, which I may do. Searching for same on the study shelves got me also a Belne fantasy manga which I looked at and concluded that my Japanese no longer exists. However, bought new reading glasses this afternoon because the study ones are completely foutu, and this may help with reading manga. Because I got them at Blawblaws they cost three times what the dollar store would charge without any guarantee of being any better, but the dollar store is not come-attable these days when the panhandlers are back at  Bathurst and Bloor. If and when my refund comes, maybe.

Doctor asked me if I'd had any falls and I happily assured him I hadn't. Guess what pride goes before? I think it was a trip stumble going up the stairs from the basement and I landed on the floor at the top. But think I pulled a muscle at the back of my leg because it twinges something fierce unless I'm using the rollator. Have applied heat and relaxants and have physio tomorrow. But my clothes will just have to mould in the washer until I'm steadier on my feet.

Got out for the first time in nearly ten days (and no, chopping ice next door doesn't count.) Feeling slightly less apocalyptic for the air and exercise and human interaction, if ordering a sweet vanilla cold brew counts as such. Lockdown was never this distressing, but then in lockdown I could bicycle around to my stores, which I did several times a week as I recall.  Also Trump, though around, hadn't declared himself dictator or threatened to invade various countries he had his beady eyeballs on.

Street corners are better than expected though there are two untouched slush bogs between me and Yarmouth, and half of Yarmouth is the same so walked in the street. But Christie was fairly clear, aside from those types that cleared a scant foot/ 30 cm wide path for the able-bodied to walk through. So made it to Blawblaws where a cauldron of unholy lusts sang about my ears. (Have said before, cauldrons do not sing, Gus, unless you're Housman.) Did not buy coolers or wine or chocolate anythings and definitely not pastry. Did buy toilet paper because disaster mentality me thinks the four triple rolls I have left will not last me a week. Which is of course ridiculous, the more so as I discover that drinking water doesn't involve the bladder emergencies that anything else does, especially coolers and soft drinks.

Then came back and chopped NND's ice, because I could. Sunday's snow shoveller came by and asked if I needed a hand and I said no thanks, because this is my exercise and there was only a few inches left to do. Temps will be above freezing all week, with rain, so I might tackle the I'm alright Jack types up the street, supposing my joints don't take too much exception to the dank.

I shouldn't really be all chuffed about having walked over to SND's and down the alleyway to check the vent, with just my staff to hold onto, but I did and I am. I've known for a while that I really need to start walking outside without the walker, but it's always easier, not to mention less painful, with. Must also go back to massage because the pain is from lower back and hip flexors rather than knees. And shall do when this  cruel war is over.

Otherwise have finished rereading Four Roads Cross and Full Fathom Five, and will start again on Ruin of Angels. I want that one in a trade paperback buf it doesn't come in trade paperback so must beaver through the bitsy-feeling print of the pocketbook size.

Reread also Good Omens, Pratchetty enough, though from the little I know, I think the TV series may have been better.

Back to the first day of the month weight gain. Shall blame chocolate and gingerbread indulgence because if it's wine I shall be very sad. Mind, daily wine disagrees with me and I could well lay off it. But also have discovered a new to me pasta, mafalda corta- a short and crinkly noodle that goes very well with the beef stew I've been eating all week. I do not need a new pasta but it's winter and cold and I want starch.

Incandescens sent me a link to a bunch of detective stories, some pastiche and some not. A Black Friday weekend special that assured me solemnly on Black Saturday that said books were not available for download. Eventually realized that amazon is region restricted, like DVDs, and nothing on .com will register for me registered at at .ca. But if I try at .ca there they are so I've been reading Solar Pons all day, and very nice too. Well, also vacuumed and dishes and bike machine so it's not all vegging on the couch. And finally vacuumed the side room futon that turned into a dust trap, much to my surprise. My fault for not putting a fitted sheet on the thing. Have done so now.

My s-i-l is exercised about protein intake, because insufficient protein leads to muscle loss in the elderly. Past praying for, in my case, because the muscle vanished some time in 2021. I could try getting some back with weight training but weights are a bit difficult with arthritic elbows.

Project Tiddly continues apace, thanks to which I was able to do a tofu stir-fry today, with bok choy getting past its expiry date and healthy-looking mushrooms from the Used Vegetable department (the remainder of which I will roast soon, this time preheating the pan in the oven so it doesn't warp suddenly on me like last time.) Also tinned bamboo shoots and water chestnuts in (what once was) easy open peel off cans, which now require sturdy knives and pliers to open. NB stick with can opener types. Should do me for most of the week: is the downside of cooking for one.

Occurs to me that half the TFL/ hip flexor/ piriformis tsuris might be down to not having bicycled on a real bicycle for 30 months. Can't see a way around that but would explain much.

Having exhausted the library's supply of E C R Lorac's (Carol spelled backwards) MacDonald mysteries, discover that the mighty river has them for US .99 apiece, or rather more with a low loonie. But not to be sneezed at, so I have more Golden Age mysteries to read. Also pseudo-Golden Age because vols 1-3 of Freddy Pilkington-Soames were on sale for less than vols 2 and 3 separately would come to. Thus I have enough to get me to Wednesday morning.

Also have Sheine Lende, the prequel to Elatsoe,  the sorta A/U book about an Apache girl which, mirabile dictu, didn't have the usual YA romance plot thank ghu thank ghu, and which I read flow-wise just after Winter's Gifts. Must also finish up Delicious in Dungeon to date because vol 10 is due back at the library on Thursday.

Maybe it's vaccine fallout still, maybe it's the current temps, maybe it's just arthritis being itself, but joints are still achy achy. Couldn't get to sleep last night even with beanbags all over, and when I finally did, woke myself coughing. I assume it's an allergy cough from the clear mucous feel of the thing, but may have to try sleeping propped up somehow to let the sinuses drain. Temps are set to plunge come Wednesday night which may help.

Got my credit card registered at Rogers so that's out of the way, then kept walking on Bloor back to Shoppers PO again to ask if they have customs forms for overseas, and if course they don't. It's all digital now. So,  what if you don't have a cell phone, I ask, and then yes bring in the info and they'll do it for you. They better, she says grimly, because I remember those digital forms that can't deal with Japanese addresses and that want a phone number for your recipient. At least they no longer ask you to weigh the sucker. But it beats me that people use their phones for things like paying in stores. I must find out how that works because it strikes me as immensely dangerous. I don't even keep my banking info on my phone: can't delete it from my bookmarks in Chrome in case that deletes it from all my synched devices, but there's no number on it. Still haven't figured out how to unsynch individual bookmarks but probably should.

The maples and sycamores have finally got with the program and glow red and yellowly in the warm sunshine. Thus I indulged in Restaurants again and had sushi at the Walmer Rd place I used to frequent in my bicycling days. They sat me in lonely splendour by the front window so I could look at the church across the way and also the variegated passersby on Bloor. Eventually other people came in, one being a woman with her own walker which she tried to park in front of the doors, not realizing that it wasn't the little nook she thought it was. She was sitting behind me and telling her companion about her granddaughter/ niece/ relative called Cassandra, which name the girl hated on account of knowing her Greek mythology. Then she had to explain to her friend who Cassandra was and that got her onto Iphigeneia and the causes of the Trojan War. Trouble was, she couldn't remember the name of the Greek leader and had to talk around this lacuna. And I so wanted to tell her 'Agamemnon' but This. Is. Toronto!! where one doesn't do that.

I will learn eventually that if I'm going to vacuum and dust anywhere, especially an anywhere that hasn't been vacuumed and dusted in several months, that I must must must wear a mask. But at least the front bedroom is devoid of the worst of the dust bunnies. Given that yesterday I washed the kitchen floor and degreased half the stovetop, I can let my virtue console me for the present swollen sinuses.

I will also learn some day that even if I'm parsimonious with the olive oil, roasted veg will always disagree with me. A pity, because roasted is pretty much the only way I care to eat most of the vegetables going. This won't be a problem shortly, because the present brief autumn temps will be bouncing up to the mid 20sC/ 70sF in a day or two.

Loblaws had salmon cakes for not too much, so bought same as a way of getting my omega-3s and all that stuff. They want you to barbecue them, which can't do sorry, so I panfried instead. 'Cook from frozen', they said. Yes well. When frozen, the stacked patties won't separate. I might have tried a flat-head screwdriver and hammer, because inserted knives were not haha cutting it, but instead I cooked them enough that eventually the two halves separated. So tonight I'm having salmon burger again, if my tum settles down.

Thursday morning after my shower I noticed my scratchy Japanese cloths were getting a bit whiffy. I shake them dry after each use and they don't hold water, but in wet summers even they start to mold. So I hung them on the line to bleach in the sun and went about my errands. Only of course I totally forgot about them and when I went to shower yesterday, they were still outside getting washed in the rain. Have brought them in today and they smell marvellous now.

Other thing I did was plug in my old air purifier that I haven't used since the spring, because it had taken to shrieking. It no longer shrieks but equally, no longer has filters because I threw the old ones away.  Meant to get out to Home Hardware today but didn't,  between aching sinuses and aching joints. Am still not convinced the thing has returned from its howling fit, and those filters cost a lot.

I believe I actually got out yesterday to my two supers, though everything else about yesterday is gone. Today I woke up at 9, limped to the bathroom, and then went back to sleep for rwo hours because I could. Also didn't want to do my exercises. I get tired of having to do 30 minutes of exercise before getting out of bed-- 45 or more if I do All The Exercises-- only for it to make very little difference.  The things that spasmed and crippled me five years ago still do it, only now it's chronic, and I never know if I'm going to be able to stand in a lineup or walk into a store without something to hold onto. So what have I been doing hours of exercise every day for anyway?

Meant to go get more chocolate milk for my mocha floats because the supers are open on this holiday Monday, but first I couldn't get the lid off the ice coffee I bought, and then it started raining, in spite of 5% POP and radar weather showing no precipitation in the next five hours. It's not at all hot- mid-20s-- but of course the humidex is off the charts. No sign of that cold front that was supposed to move through today, bringing seasonable temps for the next week. Just steam and more rain and then back into the 30C/ 80sF.

Any good intentions I had yesterday about getting my blood draw were cancelled by the mother of all bad knee days. Like just lying in bed hurt, never mind limping down to the bathroom. So I stayed in, either in bed or on the couch, while the day sweltered outside. Ordered in dumplings because wasn't going to cook in this weather. Then when the wind started to blow in the evening, went out and dropped a number of French books from my mother's library at the little library of someone who'd asked for contributions on the neighbourhood's FB page. She lives across from the Catholic French immersion school and the parents come looking for French books. Not sure if Malraux or de Maupassant are what they want-- they could presumably get them in ebook form from either Kindle or the library, as I get my Dickens; but then again, I deliberately bought Bleak House in paperback so as not to have to deal with the ebook. Someone else's Wee Free had Nicholas Nickleby and Old Curiosity Shop, but I am not a fan of early 'paid by the word' Dickens, and the print was tiny. For Great Expectations or even Copperfield (which I haven't read) I might have taken a chance, but otherwise life-too-short.

Anyway it thundered and rained last night and today was cool and sort of dry, so blood draw was accomplished. But I didn't take my morning meds, particularly the stomach coaters, because I don't know if they screw up the results or not, and forgot to take them when I got home, and then was wondering why my stomach hurt. Didn't help that today was my glass of wine day, followed by cold brew coffee. 

Also had this dry little cough, and at the lab everyone else had a dry little cough. Since I also have thunderous sneezes I'm calling it an allergy.

The result of several days of mug and a week of no alcohol, no rice, no pastry, and minimal bread every other day is a drop of 3 lbs and change. It's doubtless mostly water weight but I am very happy to be relieved of bloat, which hurts my everything in the hot humid weather. Humidity has eased off a bit but of course rain is forecast for the next two days. If it falls Saturday my grief will be consolable, because that's the infamous neighbourhood Open Mic two doors down and maybe they won't hold it outdoors. Except they'll probably do it on the porch which will reverberate even more. Shall take me out to lunch and the library in any case.

Heat melts the brain so I spent the last few days reading Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands, a limited loan, and undemanding ebook detective novels: the historic Devil in Music and a couple of almost historic by now E. X. Ferrars' Andrew Bassett mysteries. Published in the Felony and Mayhem series, whose ebooks have the bad habit of suggesting other books, with previews. There were a couple of intriguing Toronto set ones but the library only has them at the non-circulating Reference Library. Fast reads, but even if I was minded to spend a day there, the transit is probably going on strike tomorrow and taxis will be very much at a premium.

So I shall continue on with Elusive, and possibly Tengoku Ryokou, which fails to hold my attention. Should probably reread all my Rainy Willow tanks instead.

Had to turn on the window AC last night, set to 18, which did not cool the room as it should have. Maybe because I always had a standing fan to boost the flow, and a window fan, propped up on a chair because the window was closed, doesn't provide sufficient oomph.
Feel a little sunstruck, which I can't be because I wear a hat outside and anyway today was intermittent cloud and rain. But my phone has decided that gardening is a cardiovascular workout and gives me unwonted amounts of heart points for same.  So maybe I'm just tired.

Well, that could have been more painful. The direct line the physio gave me was 'this number is not in service,' the booking dep't goes to lunch at 12:30 not 1, and I somehow got the MRI people not the CT scan ones. But I wasn't on hold for much more than ten minutes when I called at 1:30 and they don't play muzak. I have an appointment now in October (gulp) which she apologized for but apparently it's a much in demand service. So that's  done.

Finished Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, very pleasant as her books tend to be. Also 100 Demons 31, not all about the Niigata family but still with Ritsu trying to finish up his master's thesis.

Currently on Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries, a short term loan that I must persevere with, and the most recent Flavia Albia, whose blurb is a major spoiler, and Equal Rites, another 'somehow never read' Pratchett.

DNF Only a Monster: intriguing premise but lacklustre treatment and of course YA with mandatory love triangle, Y oh Y? Because mandatory, I suppose.

Have a Japanese novel waiting for me at the library which I can probably renew easily if it takes me longer than three weeks since no one has a hold on it.

In spite of rain, wind, and a high of 5C/ 40F, the first white flowers appear on my cherry tree, after the faintest hint of white on Sunday. So now I'll be marking the daily progress. 

Did not go out today-- see: rain-- but did do maybe 15 minutes of marching in place and walking backward and all. Not all at once: five minutes is about what my back will stand for and then I have to sit and do leg lifts and such. Baby steps, literally, but walking with the rollator just doesn't strengthen anything.

Finished Translation State. Have a Murderbot in the hand and another at the library so am well set up for reading.

Mhh well. I still limp about but my physio says I have a huge bruise back of my knee. Possiby I just bruised my leg but personally I think it comes from me having poked about back there in an attempt to feel what was going on. 

Spent yesterday evening reading lj entries  from 2005.  2003 doesn’t seem that long ago because I've revisited it often,  but 2005 (which memory says was utterly forgettable and is thus forgotten) really was another life.

Reading, I finished A Fatal Thing Happened etc, and two Corvinus rereads: In at the Death, where a young senatorial sprig throws himself out a window, and Illegally Dead, about a country lawyer's murder. Would happily reread more but I remember the plots too well, even if I forget the side plots completely.

Currently am not taken with The Bright Ages, A New History of Medieval Europe, because the personages involved are as rebarbative as their Roman predecessors. Thought to reread some of my 'once if that Pratchetts'-- Mort, Sourcery, Equal Rites, Monstrous Regiment-- but unfortunately began with The Amazing Maurice, which is far darker than I'd remembered. Am also having twinges of spring SAD, not helped by twinges of spring allergies, and downer books do not help.

Oh, and saw SND in her back yard playing with her new pupper. Who really does look like a beagle puppy and not a chihuahua anything. Maybe it's another rescue dog entirely?

My solitaire site is down, and has been down for two days now, meaning it's almost certainly Gone. Cold turkey on Addiction Solitaire, or rather Yukon. Of course there are other sites and I do play on them when the itch gets too bad, but they're clunky and bitsy and have funny cards. Not that I need any more time wasters but hell, at my age time is for wasting.

As in, must get down to Bloor for a fasting blood draw but I'm currently barely able to make it down the hallway in the mornings. Stretching helps some, but in the present Knee Will Not mode, any distance requires meds which require food. Glum.

Cortisone shot in right elbow today, the one I said was 'not as bad as the left, generally' until the doc started putting it through its range of motion. And then it was click click ow ow. Thus, shot. And I have half a vial of the stuff if I want to do the left one. Doc says I will see results in two to three days but effect won't last more than six weeks max. Which is weird, because the knee shots were every three months.  But if I have a good month I might just get some more cleaning done around here. Refrigerator, I am looking at you.

Whether it was that hour in the dentist's chair, or the cough syrup, or last night's restaurant dinner (avocado and mushroom stone pot that must have contained a whole avocado), or simply two days in a row of having to be up before I wanted to,  in any case today I felt lousy. Achy joints, uncertain tum, vertigo. And a physio appointment up the street in the cold, which confirmed my suspicion that the city had bobcatted the west side of each street while leaving the east side untouched: and then spread half an inch of salt on the western sidewalks. I thought they were worrying about salt run off into the sewers and lake? Municipal right hand neither knowing nor caring what the left hand doth.

And there's nothing to choose between pushing a rollator over Sahara-sand rock salt on the west and the ridges of unshovelled snow on the right. Both make unhappy elbows even unhappier. Add the fact that we barely had an inch of snow, that bobcats and salt in such quantities were thus unnecessary, and that I'm somehow the only person on my block to sweep the stuff away, and I am displeased. Though a neighbourhood FB group posted a video of the little old lady who lives on Follis sweeping her snow away. She's the one with bad scoliosis who walks bent in half with a cane, and who nonetheless does her own shopping and gardening *and* snow shovelling.

Can't say much about 2023 personally. Pretty much as undistinguished as 2022. Things actually happened in '20 and '21 and I feel, without much evidence, that I was more mobile then, at least until the summer of 2021. But the next two years just... passed. Any gains made on the physical front were lost later, for no reason I can name. Unless you count Baker's cysts and increasing knee pain there. Cyst may go after another two or three months, hopefully not weakening the leg the way the other did. Knee may get replaced, but there's still all the off-balance muscle spasms that I never got rid of. 

Oh well. More exercises, to see what they can accomplish. Though even when I was doing two hours a day, I still had the debilitating back pain, and nothing that worked for other people has worked for me.